Obama: Health Care Website ‘Hasn’t Worked As Smoothly As It Was Supposed To Work’

WASHINGTON (CBSDC/AP) — President Barack Obama admits that there have been issues with healthcare.gov since it was launched three weeks ago.

It “hasn’t worked as smoothly as it was supposed to work,” Obama said in the White House Rose Garden Monday morning.

Obama, while promoting the Affordable Care Act, said it “is not just a website” and that there are other ways to purchase health insurance instead of just doing it online. Obama said to either do it in person or over the phone.

“The prices are good. It is a good deal,” Obama said. “People don’t just want it, they’re showing up to buy it.”

The president said that even though the website is getting fixed, healthcare.gov is still working for many Americans.

“I want the cash registers to work, I want the checkout lines to be smooth, so I want people to get this great product,” Obama said.

Obama admitted that the website glitches have made “a lot of supporters nervous” with Republicans pouncing on the problem.

During his nearly 30-minute speech, one woman standing behind Obama nearly fainted and was taken away.

“This happens when I talk too long,” Obama joked while the woman was taken away. He also told the people behind him “good catch” when the woman became faint.

Obama said that 20 million people have visited the healthcare.gov website.

“The law works,” Obama said. “That’s why we fought so hard.”

The Republican National Committee tweeted that Obama’s speech was an “epic infomercial.”

Although Obama’s law remains divisive, only 29 percent of the public favors its complete repeal, according to a recent Gallup poll. The business-oriented wing of the Republican party wants to move on to other issues. Americans may be growing weary of the health care fight.

“#TrainWreck: Skyrocketing Prices, Blank Screens, & Error Messages,” screamed the headline on a press release Friday from House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio. A House hearing on the “botched Obamacare rollout” is scheduled for this coming week. GOP lawmakers want Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to resign.

Administration officials, in their most detailed accounting yet of the early rollout, said Saturday that about 476,000 health insurance applications have been filed through federal and state exchanges. But the officials continue to refuse say how many people have enrolled in the insurance markets.

Without enrollment figures, it’s unclear whether the program is on track to reach the 7 million people projecting by the Congressional Budget Office to gain coverage during the six-month sign-up period.

“To our Democratic friends: You own ‘Obamacare’ and it’s going to be the political gift that keeps on giving,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

“Irresponsible obsession,” scoffs Rep. Sander Levin of Michigan, ranking Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee, which oversees much of the health law.

Democratic pollster Celinda Lake says she doesn’t see how going after the health law rollout will help Republicans by the time of next year’s election.

“Americans are technology optimists,” said Lake. “You tell them the website has problems today, and they’ll assume it will be better tomorrow. I mean, we’re Americans. We can fix a website.”

There may be a method to the GOP’s single-mindedness.

Republicans are intent on making the health law an uncomfortable anchor around the neck of four Democratic senators seeking re-election in GOP-leaning states, weighing them down as they try to unseat them. Republicans need to gain six seats to seize the majority in the Senate, and any formula for control includes flipping the four seats.

Sens. Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Mark Begich of Alaska and Kay Hagan of North Carolina will be facing voters for the first time since they were among the 60 Democrats who voted for the health law in 2009.

More than a year before the election, Republican Rep. Tom Cotton is airing an ad that criticizes Pryor for his vote, telling Arkansans that Pryor “cast the deciding vote to make you live under Obamacare.” The commercial’s final image shows Pryor with Obama, who took a drubbing in Arkansas last year.

“The bottom line is these candidates will have to answer for why they voted for this bill,” said Rob Engstrom, senior vice president and national political director for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

If the website gets fixed, other problems may emerge. Republicans can still try linking ‘Obamacare’ to rising premiums, anemic job growth and broader economic worries.

Will the strategy work?

The chamber spent millions on ads in 2012 criticizing Senate incumbents such as Jon Tester of Montana and Bill Nelson of Florida for their health care votes, yet many of those candidates overcame the criticism and won re-election.

The economy, not health care, remains the top concern of voters. By putting opposition to the health care law ahead of all other priorities, economist Douglas Holtz-Eakin says tea-party conservatives may have overdone it.

“Obamacare was an effective campaign weapon,” said Holtz-Eakin, and adviser to Republicans. “The question is, have they damaged it beyond its political viability?”

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